


Clandestine

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Marauders' Era, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-26
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2019-01-19 14:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12412239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: She is the most colorful thing James has ever seen. AU.





	1. Meetings and Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**Clandestine:** adj; characterized by, done in, or executed with secrecy or concealment, especially for purposes of subversion or deception; private or surreptitious.

\--*

She was the most colorful thing he had ever seen, and he never wanted her to leave. His dead eyes fed hungrily on her, a focal point in a world that was whirring haphazardly around him – her movement and excitement and talking and color and life, but also her solidity and permanency. The opposite of him; poor, sad, small him, sitting in the corner on an armchair, concealed by shadows and silence and easily forgotten. Oh, how he wished he could be happy like her, be happy with himself and have people to talk to. But he was alone. He supposed it was better this way.

\--*

She was delicate and lovely and he loved it. Her legs were pale and thin under her skirt and her fingers, long and dainty. He liked this about her because it was everything he was not. He was harsh and corrupted and as good as dead; unwilling and uneventful. She was soft and innocent and _so_ alive. She ate in the middle of the house table with her hair piled in a bun, loose strands falling out around her face as she raised her fork to her mouth. He watched from the far end of the table, no food on his sparkling plate and nobody around him, his skin pale and drawn over his cheekbones. He wanted to smoke. She made him miss everything he once had; thinking about the things he missed made him sad, which made him feel alone, which made him want to smoke. His past friends smoked recreationally – he did it therapeutically. Sure, it made his eyes sink, his skin sallow, his breath wheezy and his clothes smell, but it was worth the short time of freedom from himself.

\--*

"James!"

He didn't turn.

"James!"

It was a girl, why was she calling him?

"James," she panted as she reached his side. His eyes only flickered in her direction and he continued walking through the corridor without as much as outwardly acknowledging her existence. She did not seem to find this type of behavior offensive and stared up at him, long lashes framing her wide eyes.

"I was just wondering how you were."

He stopped curiously. Why was she here? They had never talked for any length of time; before this he was a prick and she, the same innocence personified. He turned to look at her, all sallow skin and tired limbs, sad and creaking and aching and tired, so tired.

"Why are you asking me?" he said, with a voice scratchy and jaw creaking from lack of use. She clutched her canvas bookbag and continued to flicker her eyes over his face. He felt as if she was seeing everything he had already done and everything he was going to do right through his skin. His eyes stared back impassively at her warm face and fiery hair, standing out against the grey stone of the walls.

"I'm getting along," he answered when she gave him no reply, no emotion betrayed in his voice. She didn't look convinced, he noted with a slight feeling of disappointment, although he had been waiting for the day when someone noticed he wasn't getting along. She came to him, and today might turn out to be that day.

The skeptical look that she had in her eyes did not spread to the rest of her face or persona, but he knew it was there. Spending so much time alone had led him to improve the way he read people's emotions from their faces. Then she relaxed a little and tilted her head to the side, considering him.

"I know," she sighed, her breath tickling his bare arms. She took another minute to observe him, raking her eyes over his prominent collarbones and thin neck and unruly hair. He really, really needed a smoke.

Suddenly her hand stretched out out out and took his cold fingers into her palm and pressed them there, as if she was trying to press life and loveliness into them. "I want to talk to you," she said earnestly, but in a way that meant their present conversation was over, and as quickly as it had come the warmth from her hand was gone and his fingers were once again limp by his side, and she had vanished down the corridor, leaving him one again concealed by shadows and silence.

\--*

**Author's Note:**  Thanks for stopping by!


	2. Simple

The cold air swept through his hair as he sagged against a wall. Too much, too much, just too much excitement for one day and his nerves were shot, gone. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a joint, carelessly rolled but cautiously handled. Cradling it between fingers, he pulled out a Muggle lighter and click, click, clicked it until flame appeared, the brought it to the joint's end. He breathed in deep, flooding his lungs with smoke and good feelings. Sliding down the wall, he tipped his head back and let the smoke back out out out into the night air. He felt relaxed and felt his soul unclench and his brain release. It felt good. He forgot about her and about his parents and about his teachers looking discreetly at him during class. He forgot about it all and just sat.

 

\--*

 

He sat alone in the back corner of the room, it's just how it was. He'd sit and watch, watch everything that happened, from Alice Williams' foot tapping a beat into the floor to Peter Pettigrew's showing socks in row three. He was tired today, but he supposed that was considered normal for him. He had barely settled his back against the hard chair when there was a flurry of movement to his immediate right. His head jerked towards it as Lily arranged her books on the table in front of them, her uniform shirt clean and white and hurting his eyes. He shut them, brow furrowed, mind whirring and without answers. She finished arranging her things and turned to him, damn those wide eyes, looking so innocently at his pale face. She smiled when he looked back.

 

"Hello, James." Simple. It was always simple with her and yet so complicated. She was like that. His mouth twitched in return, almost in the imitation of a smile, but he had forgotten how. She took it pleasantly, as always. She slid him a piece of parchment. "Do you have a quill?"

 

Of course he didn't, he didn't have anything except himself anymore. He responded to her with his eyes. She slipped a quill on top of the parchment and placed an inkwell between them. He stared unbelievingly at the items, then back at her, and she just smiled and began writing as the teacher talked.

 

\--*

 

He did have a conscience, it just wasn't functioning right then. All he knew was that she was beautiful and lovely and kept appearing around him. He liked it. He wondered why she, of all people, kept approaching him, of all people. He wondered why he didn't scare her away. She approached him again, subtly this time, in the hall after lunch. He was walking slowly, cushioning his tender limbs. She came up to him from the front and placed a hand delicately on his chest to stop his progression. The warmth permeated his shirt and burned his skin. She rested it there for a moment more, feeling his ribs through the thin material, then took her hand back and pierced him with her eyes.

 

"Come with me?" she asked, but he knew it wasn't a question. He followed.

\--*

**Author's Note:** I know my chapters are outrageously short, but I will definitely update much more often if I keep them like this. Thanks for reading!


	3. Lake

They walked silently through the corridors, back through the Great Hall, and out the massive double doors that served as the castle's entrance. Her shining Head Girl badge meant that nobody inquired as to where they were going, and for that he was glad.

The day was crisp, with a sky that looked like a painting – clear cerulean, with white cotton ball clouds evenly spaced, as though planned. The trees had just begun to change their colors, the deep greens changing subtly to browns, oranges and reds. She led them across the grounds, her loose hair flowing behind her in the autumn breeze, while his lungs struggled to keep up with her purposeful stride. He hadn't moved this quickly in months, and he felt the pumping blood begin to lubricate his joints as they continued, her sights on the lake.

As they approached, the glassy surface reflecting the clouds overhead came more clearly into view. A bird of prey circling low overhead dove suddenly, splashing the crystal surface, and rose with a wriggling fish clamped in its beak. The ripples from his catch slowly moved out from the epicenter toward the shore where they now walked, Lily's pace now slowed to a more comfortable stroll.

So far, she had led their procession a consistent half-pace ahead, not sparing him a glance but knowing that he was following her lead. Now that she has slowed, she turns her eyes to him. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes a little too bright under dark lashes; she pretends not to notice his breath is coming in harsh gasps.

The Forbidden Forest borders the lake on the far side from the castle, huge, dark trees rising like spires into the sky. The evergreen needles make this the only shaded spot around the lake's edge, leaving him blinking as they left the sunlight's warmth. When his eyes focused again, she was hoisting herself up the side of a boulder, her skirt brushing her thighs as she grasped natural holds in the rock. Once situated at the top, she looked back at him.

"Come on up, then," she said, reaching a hand down over the edge as if to help him from there.

He pressed his lips together,  _if yesterday was the most exhausted he'd ever felt, he was surely to die today,_  and gingerly placed his hands in the small grooves.

\---

He wasn't always like this. He wasn't always just a mess of bones, haphazardly packaged within pallid skin and adorned with a mop of hair. There was once a time when he, too, was radiant with life.

At 11, he was slight for his age, but had the attitude of a dozen 11-year-olds combined. He demanded attention, from the way he ate to the way he entered a room. Even his whisper was a dramatic affair, drawing curious glances, despite the fact that the very nature of a whisper was to be surreptitious.

At 12, he had grown an inch, but his recruitment to the Gryffindor Quidditch team (the fact that he was second string need not be mentioned) only gave him more reason to swagger through the halls. He was a child still, but the world was at his fingertips. He was unstoppable, and everyone seemed to know it. It was only a matter of time until he was seventeen and ready to rule the world.

At 13, his gallantry got the best of him in a number of hallway duels, sending him and Sirius to the infirmary in unexpectedly jovial spirits. "Did you see his face when he stumbled?" he crowed. "Did you see his faded knickers?"

At 14, he retained his ego, but an uncomfortable tickle at the back of his mind gave him a sense that reality wasn't quite as he imagined, and life perhaps wasn't where the heroes always win, and dreams are always in reach. But it was easy enough to press these small inklings into a small space, and they only really came out to bother him at night.

15\. He kept up appearances, but all was not as it seemed. After all, he read the papers when nobody was looking, his eyebrows drawn, a small crease beginning to form between them. His hallway duels now held a greater purpose.  _Mudblood_. The word reverberated in his head, his soul uneasy, his late night worries turning into full-blown insomnia. He wrote his parents more often than usual.

Sixteen. We don't talk about sixteen.


End file.
